Another marketing gimmick?

Thank you Dan D'Agostino. He started this back in the early 80's with Krell. Initially it was just thick face plates and gold screws. I would like to think his early Krell stuff sold because it really sounded good but soon other manufacturers climbed on board looking for ways to distinguish their equipment visually at least. Now if it looks good it must sound good and everything even wires got sucked in. As I have said before, all this money wasted on jewelry could have been spent on better engineering and components. We all pay for this. Pass Labs is a good example of a manufacturer who did not fall for this entirely. His designs are straight forward. He uses the same chassis parts across his model line to save money so you pay for performance. I could do without the meters.